Question: Damage vs critical damage and kill allocation to used weapons

Even after playing the game for ~ 7 years i learn from time to time something new.

I was credited today with killing the last enemy (i was they last guy too) after 11:18 minutes. I scored a very slight damage (hit, no damage to wings, engines or flaps, obviously splash damage, no yellow zone besides a small part center fuselage) on him after 08:02 with a 60kg bomb drop on his runway (gaining 267 SL) and 2 further hits at 10:52 and 10:57 - accompanied by a crit at 10:52 (535 SL). The last 3 were all done with 20mm.

He died obviously not due to the barely visible bomb damage (i watched the replay), but gaijin credited me with a bomb kill (Surprise - 500 SL) and completed my Battle Pass task (5 player kills with bombs <120 kg).

Has anybody an explanation why the kill was allocated to the minor hit with a bomb instead of severe damage with cannons?

Just curious. Thx in advance!

The replay

Edit: Described bomb hit more precisely

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Meanwhile me critting an enemy numerous times and not getting a kill, not even an assist:

Anyway, you probably caused critical damage that lead to his engine failing over time, possibly

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Thx man for trying to help, i updated my question, no engine damage with bomb…my cannons damaged his tail and took out his right horizontal stabilizer…

Have a good one!

If you damage them, even a tiny barely registered hit with a single 7.7mm round, and they crash or J out without repairing, you get credited with the kill.

Its to help credit people for deserved kills when people try to J out or crash to avoid giving you the kill, or to reward people for maneuver kills.

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Thx man, i was aware of this.

Unfortunately this was not the issue here; my target crashed as he was too low and the damage to the tail and his loss of the right horizontal and vertical stabilizer (due to my cannon damage, he flew a very rare PV-2D) prevented him from pulling up.

So the cannons caused the kill, but the game says “bomb”. That’s why i am so confused / looking for “special game mechanics”.

And tbh - i think that the “slight damage results in a kill” function is not always working properly; at least from my pov.
I damaged a hell of planes in the last years and they crashed later (mostly due to overspeeding) without allocating the or “a” kill, battle log says just “crashed”.

Have a good one!

It may just be a case of the “fuzziness” of the damage calculations. I can certainly remember times when all I’ve done is get a hit a someone and 5 minutes later I get awarded the kill, and also other times where it said I crit someone and a minute later they died and I get no kill or assist. Both of these situations shouldn’t happen according to the damage mechanics / destruction explanations.

You’re probably aware of this, but will post the links to those explanations as they are relevant for other readers:
https://wiki.warthunder.com/Damage_mechanics
https://wiki.warthunder.com/Destruction_credit_mechanics

Could also be something like bomb damage being prioritised for the event … who really knows (shrug emoji)

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Thx man! Yes, i knew the linked stuff, but reading it again did not hurt.

Your assumption regarding bomb damage being prioritized might be correct

I realized on some maps the destruction of respawning bases on 4 bases maps was slightly easier regarding TNT required whilst using the small bomb bonus.

Usually you needed 13 x 60 kg to kill such a base (BR 3.7 so range 2.7-4.7). Thx to the small bomb bonus it is enough to get the 0,8 tons of TNT required despite the tnt output of the 60 kg being much lower. Now in a very few matches 10 were enough…it was rare, but it happened.

On the other hand the game has still some strange bugs, last BP season i needed to create a bug report (forced to do so by gaijjin support) as the game refused to give me the mission decider reward. 3 times in about 2 weeks; support gave me the missing SLs, but refused to add the reward to the counter of special tasks…

Have a good one!

That’s a good point about the TNT for bases. I can recall matches where I’ve done 1.2 to a base and haven’t destroyed it (say, 80-90% damaged), but yet someone else will show as 0.8 and has destroyed a base. (this was before any napalm/fire bombs).

In conclusion, and unfortunately, I don’t think you’ll get a definitive answer… but just keep playing :)

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